School of­ficials: students need more space
Residents will
vote on school

VERONICA YANKOWSKI staff The hallways in Millstone Middle School get so crowded that administrators decided to stagger dismissals so students could get into their lockers before going home.

referendum Sept. 30

BY JENNIFER DOME

Staff Writer

School administrators in Millstone have made numerous adjustments in order to accommodate the influx of students into the district over the last decade.

The growing student population has not only affected the way school administrators run the district, but prompted officials to schedule a Sept. 30 referendum.

Voters will decide next week if they think the cost of a new middle school, renovations at the districts’ existing schools, and a transportation depot are necessary for the district.

But as school officials told the Examiner during a tour of the district’s buildings last week, the need for more space is not just a necessity for the future, but also one for the present.

In the middle school, students in fifth through eighth grade are divided into four separate lunch periods. The first group of students eats at 10:20 a.m. and the lunch periods end at 1:30 p.m.

Because of the crowded conditions in the middle school cafeterium, a railing was erected along a stage in the room this summer to create what Superintendent of Schools William Setaro jokingly called "mezzanine dining."

Besides the crowded eating conditions, the size of the cafeterium causes problems when it comes to school performances. Setaro said that it is impossible to invite parents to an event for an entire grade level since there is not enough room to accommodate those who want to attend.

The gymnasium is also a problem for school assemblies or other activities, middle school Principal Daniel Bland said.

"This gymnasium is dramatically undersized for this school," he said.

In addition, class sizes and traffic jams in the middle school’s hallways are a main source of concern for school administrators.

"The hallway is probably our biggest problem," Bland said.

While fifth-grade students often stay in the same classroom for longer periods throughout the day, other students at the middle school change rooms more frequently.

The school has implemented some tactics to decrease the problems students have moving from class to class. Recently teachers began releasing students with top-tier lockers first, followed by those with bottom-tier lockers, and then students who participate in extracurricular activities after school. This process was necessary because the hallways were too jammed when students tried to get into both top- and bottom-tier lockers at the same time, Bland said.

The principal said that while the addition of six temporary trailers on the middle school campus has helped slightly with class sizes this year, "adding trailers does not help us with the lockers."

While the trailers have given the school some space that wasn’t available last year, overcrowding still exists. Classes are held in the corner of the library and some teachers move from class to class each period, carrying their supplies on a rolling cart, according to Bland.

"We use every usable square inch of this building," Bland said.

The district’s elementary school also uses three trailers to relieve crowded classrooms. Over the next two years, Setaro said, the school will need three more trailers to accommodate the students that are expected to enroll in the district.

"Ideally, I’d like them back in the building," elementary school Principal Laura Vetere said.

Because the trailers are significantly smaller than a classroom in the school, the half-day kindergarten classes that are held there are kept to a class size of 16 students. Therefore there are 10 sections of kindergarten at the school, Setaro said.

The superintendent said he is not satisfied with class sizes in either of the district’s schools. In the middle school, some classes have as many as 29 students. The preferred class size is around 20 to 23 students, he said.

In the elementary school, there are 26 students in some classes, he said. The maximum class size desired by the state is 23 students, he added.

"There’s a distinct personal touch you want, especially on an elementary level," Vetere said. This personal touch becomes difficult when the class sizes are too large, she said.

If township residents approve the referendum Sept. 30, the current elementary school will house pre-kindergarten through second-grade students. The current middle school will hold the third-, fourth- and fifth-graders, and the new middle school will house sixth through eighth grades, according to school officials.

The district’s transportation system is also a source of concern for Setaro. According to the superintendent, the district spends $40,000 annually just to maintain buses that drivers must take home with them after school. The district’s storage facility only has enough space to hold half of the 31 buses in the fleet, Setaro said. The buses that are parked at the drivers’ homes acquire more miles and need more fuel, he said.

Also, with drivers taking buses home, someone must retrieve the bus if a driver becomes ill and can’t work, district officials said.

If voters approve the referendum next week, a new transportation depot in the proposal will take care of these problems, Setaro said.

The renovations at the current middle school will also relieve problems the drivers encounter when picking up and dropping off students since the parking lot is tight, the superintendent said.